I along with the 4 other group QA managers have been mandated to write a corporate quality manual compliant to ISO 9000 standards.
I'm seeking some direction, as to which is the better of two routes to take.

1. Purchase one of the many sample manuals being peddled and modify it
2. Using the standards prepare our manual from scratch

Or if any of the forum members have a better suggestion, that'll be great too.

Thanks in advance for your views
Jason

Do a manual from scratch. You can use a canned manual for some ideas or suggestions.

Using a canned manual then doing a rewrite leads to listing processes that sound good but you don't realy do.

For a Quality System to work it's best to baseline what you do then improve.

I agree with ddunn.

The canned versions are good for showing format and what kind of information is expected to be there.

But a manual is supposed to show what you do, not what you say you ought to do. Resistance has been at its worst against a program that's ill-fitting and feels prescriptive. You want people to do what's in the manual, so they should feel like it belongs to them.

I'm seeking some direction, as to which is the better of two routes to take.

1. Purchase one of the many sample manuals being peddled and modify it
2. Using the standards prepare our manual from scratch
I agree with Jennifer and ddunn. I would use alt. 2 any day.
The following threads should provide some further hints :read: :

HELP - Tips on updating Manual (1994 - 2000) (http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=6419&highlight=mercifully)
What is acceptable quality Manual content? How much detail to put in here? (http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=6490&highlight=manual+content)
QMS QualityManual - Boss Wants a 4 Page Manual - What to Do? (http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=4866)
How BIG is Your Quality Manual? (http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=6908)

/Claes

I along with the 4 other group QA managers have been mandated to write a corporate quality manual compliant to ISO 9000 standards.

Jason

Dare I ask "Why"?

ISO9001:2000 says that you must "establish and maintain a quality manual", but it doesn't actually say why!

ISO9000:2000 describes a "quality manual" as a "document that provides consistent information, both internally and externally, about the organization's quality management system" - so why not "just" define your management system (preferably as a structured set of process descriptions with supporting work instructions/procedures and forms) and make sure that it contains the few items listed in ISO9001:2000?

I contend that a quality manual which contains only the elements listed in ISO9001:2000 tells you next to nothing about the organisation nor its management system, and is unlikely to assure you of the quality of the goods or services to be provided.

Go on - be radical!

Jason,
Let's start by asking:
Do you currently have a corporate Quality/Business management system in place at or, throughout your location/s?
I presume you and your four (4) other "QA manager" colleagues have QA designations that, reflect your current and possibly previous business process tasks.
Why ISO 9001?
Is it possible for you to elaborate regarding, your current business management system set up?
Wallace.

First thank you all for your input.

Wallace, yes each of us do have a current manual in palce based on the old version ISO, we had also added a self improvement and customer focus/satisfction sections, without changing to 2000 version.
Head office has deemed it neccessary to have one standard one standard manual for the group hence here we are.

I'm seeking some direction, as to which is the better of two routes to take.

1. Purchase one of the many sample manuals being peddled and modify it
2. Using the standards prepare our manual from scratch

Or if any of the forum members have a better suggestion, that'll be great too.

Jason

Use a canned manual for ideas, but by all means write a manual that reflects the practices of your company. The ISO standard should only be a reference, too. If you just rewrite the standard for your manual, it will not explain the way your company does things. That is so critical for a manual to be the road map of the quality system........

I have never liked "corporate" quality manuals that try to cover every site regardless of how different they are.

One trend I have seen lately with TS is where you take the standard, take out the word "organisation" and insert "your company name", change some of the grammar and one manual coming right up.

This seems especially prevalent with corporate QM's.

Am I off the mark? Isn't this against the process based approach touted by 9001:2000?

I believe the initial work to develop a unique system will be more extensive than if you use a canned system that you modify. But, in the long run, I believe the unique system will be both more suitable for your business, and require fewer total hours. It requires you to better know and understand your various sytems than does the canned one.

Our quality system and manual was partially inherited from that of our parent Swedish corporation. Sometimes the fit is good, but sometimes there are differences in translation that affect how well the manual is implemented and understood. I did not encounter this problem at other companies I've worked at that developed their own manuals and systems.

Due to a recent structure change a number of locations were lumped under one division. This has given us the opportunity to create one Quality Manual (very small quality manual, without repeating the entire standard) that allows us to start the process of commonizing many of our processes.

I think of it as this way, we cooperate on a manufacturing level already, the next step is to start commonizing where we can. The quality manual can still reference different location specific systems but can reference shared systems. Document Control, Internal Auditing, Record Control, Management Review are good starts for us.

The biggest challenge was to get everyone to cooperate on wording...

Due to a recent structure change a number of locations were lumped under one division. This has given us the opportunity to create one Quality Manual (very small quality manual, without repeating the entire standard) that allows us to start the process of commonizing many of our processes.

I think of it as this way, we cooperate on a manufacturing level already, the next step is to start commonizing where we can. The quality manual can still reference different location specific systems but can reference shared systems. Document Control, Internal Auditing, Record Control, Management Review are good starts for us.

The biggest challenge was to get everyone to cooperate on wording...

:applause: Well done. I love to hear stories of Quality Successes.